About Joan Cusack Handler

Psychologist, publisher, poet Joan Cusack Handler embodies a commitment to disseminating the arts. She is co- sponsor with her husband, Alan and their son, David of the annual Gift of Music Scholarship Concert and the Handler Violin Chair/Master Class Program at the JCC Thurnauer Music School, a Bergen County, New Jersey based community music school. But Handler’s deepest passion is bringing literature, specifically poetry to people and people to poetry. Co-Founder and Director of Presenting Poetry & Prose, a literary reading series formerly hosted by the John Harms Center for the Arts in Englewood, New Jersey and recently revived by CavanKerry Press, she has extensive experience reading and teaching creative writing workshops. A member of the resident faculty of The Robert Frost Place Poetry Festival in Franconia, New Hampshire, widely regarded as the most humane and artful resource for poets in America, she is also co-chair of the Frost Place Advisory Board and former member of the Board of Governors of the Poetry Society of America. Most importantly, she is founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of CavanKerry Press, a not for profit literary press that serves both art and community.

Named for the Irish counties where Handler’s parents were born, CavanKerry makes manifest Handler’s dedication to fine poetry, to books as art objects and to giving back to the literary community and to the culture at large. Founded in 1999, CavanKerry has already published 40 books of poetry by both established and overlooked writers, beautifully produced books that probably would not have appeared otherwise. Handler explains, “No other country treats its artists the way we Americans do. Poets have no place to enter the publishing market. Virtually the only way to get a book published as a new poet is to win a competition – be the one in a possible 2,000 entrants to win one of a maximum of 8-10 first book competitions. Other than a few occasional bows in the direction of a new talent, the majority of small presses and commercial presses do not print first books. Therefore, for the most part, new talent goes unnoticed.” On the other hand, 25 of CavanKerry’s 40 volumes are FirstBooks accepted from general submission; on principle, the press does not conduct competitions.

Dedicated to bringing diverse, authentic voices to print, CavanKerry seeks books about real people leading real lives written in what Robert Frost called “the music of ordinary speech.” Though its focus is poetry, it does not exclude prose; CavanKerry publishes established writers, deserving but unpublished writers and collections ranging from anthologies to essays about the creative process. CavanKerry and Handler have also instigated a multifaceted community outreach agenda, including GiftBooks, which provides books to hospitals, geriatric institutions, prisons, and neglected libraries. A rebirth of Presenting Poetry & Prose offers free readings and writing workshops, with the stated goal of enlivening and demystifying poetry by presenting it, not in grandiose, intimidating auditoriums, but right where people live, in their homes, in neighborhood community centers, retirement homes, hospitals as well as libraries, and schools.

Among the 40 volumes of poetry that CavanKerry has published is GlOrious, a collection of Handler’s own provocative poetry. Though she has been writing actively for over 20 years, and has been published in Agni, The Boston Review, Poetry East, Southern Humanities Review, and The New York Times, GlOrious is Handler’s first published collection. Indeed, GlOrious pushes language right to its limits, confronting the most complex spiritual and corporeal issues. Five times nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Handler has received awards from The Boston Review, The Chester J. Jones Foundation, the Eve of St Agnes Competition, Roberts Writing Awards and Passaic and Gloucester County Colleges. Her second book, published in October, 2008, is The Red Canoe: Love in Its Making, a verse memoir which reveals the real-life flesh and bones of a marriage: underbelly and crown. Handler’s dual professions as poet and psychologist/former marriage therapist prepare her well for this honest and vital account of the fragile country of marriage.

Handler’s third manuscript, a yet unpublished prose book, is Confessions of Joan the Tall, a memoir written in the voice of a thirteen year old Irish Catholic girl living in the Bronx in the 1950s. A psychologist in clinical practice, she writes and lectures on the derivation and evolution of literary voice--particularly the psychological impediments to its expression, i.e. envy, dejection and censorship – real or perceived, from within or without. Her essay, “Poems and the Psyche: The Threat of Making Art, One Writer’s Journey” addresses these issues and appeared in Tampa Review in Spring, 07.